12/16/2009
Sinai is a beautiful place and so rich with history from biblical stories. You might recall stories of a man named Moses, the man who supposedly received the Ten Commandments from a mountain in Sinai, conversed with God through a burning bush. What you might not know is that stories have been told about Moses constructing twelve springs around Sinai for his twelve villages representing the twelve tribes of Judah. We had the opportunity while traveling to our stay at St. Catherine’s monastery to visit these legendary springs throughout the desert on the banks of the Red Sea. The three springs that we saw were placed within a forest of palm trees. Over the years the springs have been incapable of holding water and thus are not longer of use to the villages surrounding them. Each spring was built with stones in a circle going into the Earth’s surface no more than 30 feet. How these springs were able to supply villages with water was a mystery to me.
It was interesting though to be able to visit these huge springs built over hundreds of years ago that once were used to supply water to villages of people in Sinai. How these springs were able to supply villages with water was a mystery to me.
Whether Moses actually constructed them or not they were still something. We could see in the distance the Red Sea shore after looking across part of the peninsulas desert land with the occasional palm tree rising above the ground. While we were there we met a group of Egyptian journalist taking pictures in a large tree writing articles about the Moses springs. Being that they loved to see America tourists they asked if they could take a quick picture with our tour group to post in their local paper! Unfortunately, we did not have time to give them any contact information to see the article ourselves. It’s nice to know that our group of American students would be recognized in the publicity though.
Posted at 1:59 PM by Corey Meyer